{Funky}

I'm in a funk today. It's Friday so I should be happy but I just can't seem to get myself going today. I woke up in a fine mood. Managed to get us all out the door in a relatively timely manner today and then it all changed. While walking Emilee to school this morning, I accidentally dropped my cell phone down the sewer. Yup. Right into the mucky muck that is town sewage. I manged to laugh about it because it could have been worse. It could have been my keys and with a husband that works an hour away from home, that would not have been good.

So, still an okay morning, I decide to go weigh in at Weight Watchers even though I really just wanted to crawl into a hole because I have not been able to stay focused lately. Out of nowhere Grace decides she does not want to get in the car. She's fussing and twisting and stiffening up as I try to get her buckles on. She's screaming her head off and starts kicking the seat in front of her. And then it happened. The shoes. She kicked the shoes off. That was the last straw. I turned the car off, got her out of her seat and went back inside to put her in time out. 10 minutes later, tantrum over but now I'm in a mood.

Yesterday out of nowhere, and after I had already begun the paperwork to dissolve the Emilee Grace corporation (I really hate Murphy and his dumb laws) , I get an order. We never get orders. Rarely. When we do, it's either someone we know or someone from, say, Denmark maybe. Totally random. My first thought is "Shoot. I hope they didn't order something we don't have stock of." Of course they did. They ordered BabyLegs. 2 pairs to be exact. One pair I have in stock and the other I don't. So, I send an email asking them if they'd like a different pair PLUS an extra free pair to make up for the one I don't have. So far nothing back. Then I decided to just take the loss and order the pair they really want from someone else who has stock. I'll pay full price but at this point I don't care. I just want to ship the order. Lo and behold, the address is an APO address. Couldn't be simple could it? No idea how the order got through on my site but I tried to order from 2 different sites (BabyLegs being one of them) and neither site accepts an APO shipping address. Grrrrrrrr..............

So, here I sit. I'm cranky. My kitchen is a mess. I have my Bible study that I've neglected that needs doing and I just can't get myself going. Soon it will be lunch time and then half my day is gone. I know this feeling all too well. Chaos. Overwhelmed. Stressed. And all because I don't prioritize. I hop on the computer first when it should be the last thing I do. Had I been doing things the right way all along, would my day have gone better? Not necessarily. I may have still dropped my cell phone. Gracie may still have had a tantrum. I'd still be dealing with this crazy order. But my attitude would be different. Sunday morning in church we were reminded that we are to dwell in the secret place. That it was not a place that we should just go to visit but it's someplace that we need to live. So, I plan on moving in. I need to. I don't want to live another day as a visitor in the secret place. To some this may make no sense. To others you'll be nodding your head in agreement.

{Sunday Reflections}

We had a cool little detour on the way to church this morning. About a mile or 2 from church we saw a man walking with his Bible. I recognized him to be a homeless man that one of our church members usually brings to church. We turned the car around and just as I thought, it was Leonard. I only know his name because we asked him when he got into our car. He told us where he was coming from which was probably a good 7 miles or so. And when we made mention that that was a long way to walk to church his response was, "I go wherever the Lord gives me the strength to go". That statement made my heart happy. I'm sure we were a blessing to Leonard by picking him up but he blessed me today.

Later on in the day I received this video clip from my old Mary Kay director, Jenni. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhCF8GN8rWI It's of her 10 year old daughter leading a worship song at church this morning. I absolutely love it when I see children grow up in the ways of the Lord. As a mom, it's my responsibility to train up my children in the way they should go (Proverbs 22:6). It's been my prayer more and more these days to raise Godly children and set a Godly example to my girls. I'm so far from perfect and fleshly in many ways but my prayer is to be more like Jesus and for my girls to grow up to love the Lord with all their heart. At least my heart is in the right place. :)

Right after I listened to this video clip, it was time to put the girls to bed. Tim sat the girls down, had me find a worship song on Playlist.com and reminded them of what they learned in their Sunday school class this morning: be kind to your neighbor. Of course they were getting antsy and squirmy and acting like they had ants in their pants but when we played Jesus Lover of My Soul, we worshiped together as a family and the sweet peace and presence of God rested on us. I love these lyrics:

I love you, I need you
Though my world may fall
I'll never let you go
My Savior, My closest friend
I will worship You
Until the very end

No matter what we go through and though everything around us may seem to fall apart, as long as we hold close to Jesus, everything will be alright. I'm thankful for the Lover of My Soul today.

{The Story of Us - Part One}

The story of "us" began 8 years ago today. I had just spent Labor Day with my family and my best friend's family out east on Long Island. It was a rough day for me because my best friend had invited this guy friend of ours to come along. He was so into her and she claimed they were just friends but that day it seemed a little more than that to me. (side note: they are now married with 2 kids!) I was sulking and feeling bummed because yet again, another one of my younger friends seemed to have found Mr. Right while I was still waiting for "the one".

A little background: a few weeks before that I had gone out east again with my family, only this time to visit my aunt and uncle at their camp site. On the way home I had a little chat with God. Over the years He had given me words about getting married so I knew it was in His plan for my life but I just didn't know when. That night I told Him point blank, "I know you have someone for me. You've promised me a husband and I believe you'll bring us together when it's Your time. I'm done asking. I'm not going to beg." That was it. I really was done praying about it. Not because I didn't have faith to pray. It's just that I had prayed and pleaded long enough. I had to let it go.

Somewhere between this conversation with God and Labor Day, I had created an account on Crossdaily. It was really a christian pen pal site and I guess you could use it to meet people. I had a friend at work take a picture of me one day with the digital camera and uploaded my photo never in a million years thinking I'd ever meet anyone. I got your typical crazy emails from foreign men from Africa and the like professing their undying love for me and telling me that they wanted to marry me (which if you knew me, you'd think nothing of this. I always seemed to attract foreigners lol ). Yup. In their first email and all. lol Umm, no thanks. Then the morning after Labor Day, the day I had been feeling down, I got an email from an American (lol) who actually lived 40 minutes away (he had written the email the night before - Labor Day) Initially I was a bit freaked out. Someone close by? What if he was nuts? This is the internet after all. I wrote him back anyhow and there our relationship began.

To be continued..............on our Anniversary in October. :)

Total Randomness

My blog got a facelift. Did you notice? I wish I could take credit for it all but thanks to some really great sites out there, I managed to spruce up my blog. The background came FREE from Aqua Poppy Designs. Me likey.

I made the header using Scrapblog. Soooooooo easy to use and it has so many great FREE graphics. :) This blog is still a work in progress............as is everything else in my life these days.

Today is one of those days where I have a bunch of thoughts bouncing around my head but can't seem to make any sense of them. Maybe I'll just be random and throw them out there.

In no particular order:

1. The girls are watching Dora and I notice that a lot of her adventures include witches. We may have to ban Dora.

2. Tonight is the last night of Bible Boot Camp (VBS) and I'm pretty excited about that. The kids had a great time and I think it was a success. A lot of time and planning went into it so I'm thankful to take a break from that.

3. I got up at 5 this morning to do the treadmill. I told Tim last night to get me up even if I put up a fuss. I only did 15 minutes but I guess that's better than the zero minutes I've been doing lately.

4. One of my prayers lately is for God to make me into a morning person. I'd so much rather sleep in than get up and do anything else. I want to be that kind of mom that gets up early, gets her quiet time with the Lord in, gets showered and ready for the day, gets the house in order and gets the kids ready for the day. Pretty much I guess I'm wanting to be that woman in Proverbs 31.

5. I'd love to be more organized and get myself (and the kids) onto some sort of schedule and routine. I hate that chaotic feeling that I often feel throughout the day when I'm looking at the laundry and the messes around the house, the bills and papers piling up, etc. Sigh.

6. I'd love to reach my Weight Watchers goal one of these days. I started this summer with a plan to lose 20 lbs in 20 weeks. That went out the door pretty quickly. I actually went in the opposite direction, which I'm not happy about. I can sit here and wallow and moan and cry the blues but I choose to start tracking my points again and look forward to Sept. 15 when Emilee and Grace will both be in school and I can actually go weigh in at Weight Watchers and stay for the meetings. 19 days to go. Hopefully I can knock off a few of these lbs before then. Tim's on a new program so it always helps when we are both on the same page. Actually, I've had Em and Grace eating better this week too. I realized that if my kids have weight issues, it will be my fault and I needed to do something about that.

7. I have a lot to do today so I better get going. :)

A Mom After God's Own Heart

I have SO much to do today because tomorrow morning we leave on a quick mini-vacation and technically I should be showering but I'm really loving blogging these days and wanted to post a little something. It's funny because I don't think many people ever read (or even know it exists)this particular blog (except for Michele lol) but I enjoy doing it so that's reason enough.


I've been reading the book A Mom After God's Own Heart for, well, forever, it seems. I keep coming back to the first few chapters. There's so many great things in there regarding parenting and raising Godly children that I keep re-reading it after I've gotten sick of myself and the Monster Mommy I find myself turning into. I'm sure we've all heard the verse in Proverbs "Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it". I used to think that "train" meant taking them to church and reading them Bible stories. As my kids get older I've realized that it's really soooooo much more than that. It's teaching them scripture and reading it to them so that it gets buried deep within their little hearts. It's showing them that our relationship with God should be the most precious, most important thing in our lives. It's respecting our husbands so that they learn to respect their dad. Pretty much every things we do or say should be life lessons we pass onto our children.

One thing that Elizabeth George, the author of A Mom After God's Own Heart, talks about is reading the Word to our children. Here's an excerpt from the book that really spoke to me:
"It doesn't matter how long it's read. Even a few minutes a day will make a powerful impression on your family...................And don't worry about what your children are or are not getting out of your Bible reading times. What they do get is the firsthand experience of seeing your love for the Bible and your wholehearted commitment to God and His Son. They'll realize God's Word is important to you...therefore it will become important to them. They also get to hear scriptures. And, as the Bible teaches, "faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God" (Romans 10:17). Your family members will also receive familiarity and respect for the Bible that will help them to love and live the Word of God as they age."

I've slacked in this area but I'm glad that I keep coming back to this book to remind me of what's important.

Soft, Gentle Voice

Lately during worship at church God has been gently speaking to me about things. Last week (or the week before??) He showed me that I am bound by the fear of man. I knew I was a bit intimidated by people at time (i.e. I loathe public speaking, don't like phone calls, etc.) but I realized that it was bondage more than anything else. I've let what people think and the fear of rejection keep me from doing what God wants me to do, really what He wants us all to do and that's to preach the gospel to all people. I'm so consumed and wrapped up in my own little world (where it's safe and I don't have to put myself out) that I rarely listen to the Lord and His promptings. Something's gotta change.


Then this morning at church we got a word about how the status quo is no longer acceptable. That God wants more. That got me thinking. I've been a Martha for a long time when really my heart is to be a Mary. I want to be at the feet of Jesus, loving on Him, seeking His face, falling more in love with Him. That's kind of hard to do when I'm on Facebook more than I read the Bible or pray; when I'm working on things that God has not called me to do; when I'm more interested in the latest "scoop" than I am about getting the heart of God.


So, I'm working on working those things out. Setting my priorities in order and putting the things of this world aside to set my affections more on the Lord. I love the gentle voice of the Lord.

{Way too long since last post}

So, it's obvious that this blog has fallen to the wayside. Of course it has, with my addiction to Facebook these days. lol Who needs a blog when I plaster my life's happenings all over Facebook. Well, I think I'm going to start blogging here more often. Let's start today.

Last night the house was very quiet. I had a productive day cleaning, disciplining the kids, running some errands and avoiding fast food. By 9:40pm I was realizing that throughout my day I had not spent much time with the Lord. In fact lately, my quiet time has been slim to none. I always say a few things to God before bed each night, usually asking Him to help me do better the next day. Asking Him to forgive me for the ways I had let Him (and my family) down that day. That has been the extent of things lately. How sad. I decided that I would take advantage of the quiet and just put on some worship music and try and reconnect with my Savior. Throughout the songs I would offer up some prayers. One thing I remember praying was for God to remove the plank out of my own eye and to help me to stop pointing out the specs in other people's eyes. Somewhere along the line I had picked up this little self-righteous attitude. Somehow pointing out other people's sins (even if it's only in my head and heart) seemed to become a part of me lately. Ugh, how gross. We all sin. We all have our issues, our areas that we struggle with. I should stop focusing on the things i don't like in others and start looking into my own heart to see where I need to repent.

In my efforts to try to get myself back on track with the Lord I decided to pick up my "Starting Your Day Right" devo and read today's passage. The devo was taken out of Matthew 7 and talking about wide is the gate that leads to destruction............ As a rule, I usually take whatever chapter in the Bible the devo was coming from and read the whole thing. Lo and behold what did I find?

Matthew 7: 3-5

"Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attenion to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother 'Let me take the speck out of your eye', when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."

Whoa! Okay, Lord. Point taken. I didn't feel condemned by this. I didn't feel like I had been reprimanded. In fact I was happy that I was convicted of something last night and God confirmed it this morning, in the subtle way that He so often does. Will I never focus on someone else's flaw? No. But you can bet that I'll be trying hard not to.

Thank you, Lord for speaking to me.